Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T (A Certain Scientific Railgun T)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun 3, Toaru Kagaku no Choudenjihou 3, A Certain Scientific Railgun 3

Japanese: とある科学の超電磁砲[レールガン]T

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 25

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jan 10, 2020 to Sep 25, 2020

Premiered: Winter 2020

Broadcast: Fridays at 22:00 (JST)

Producers: Square Enix, Movic, AT-X, Warner Bros. Japan, NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan, Kadokawa

Licensors: Funimation

Studios: J.C.Staff

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Theme: Super Power

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.17¹ (scored by 86,754 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #387²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #1026

Members: 218,701

Favorites: 3,217

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@toaru_project

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Crunchyroll

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8.17

Ranked #387Popularity #1026Members 218,701

Winter 2020TVJ.C.Staff

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Episodes: /25

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Synopsis

The Daihasei Festival has begun, and that of course means that Tokiwadai Middle School—a prestigious all-girls' middle school—is competing too. Despite the participation of the "Ace of Tokiwadai," Mikoto Misaka, the other students who are participating are still putting their utmost effort into winning, no matter how impossible the feat may seem against her overwhelming might.

However, not all is fun and games. Due to the festival, Academy City opens to the outside world, and various factions have begun plotting ways to infiltrate the city. Misaka appears to be on their radar, and as the festival proceeds, people lurking from the shadows begin to emerge...

Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T brings back the Tokiwadai Ace and her friends as they dive deeper into the dark side of Academy City. From terrorist attacks to ruthless underground projects, anything is possible in this city.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Toaru Majutsu no Index Gaiden: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun
Parent story:	Toaru Majutsu no Index
Prequel:	Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S
Other:	Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T: Motto Marutto Railgun

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Misaka, Mikoto

Main

Satou, Rina
Japanese

Shirai, Kuroko

Main

Arai, Satomi
Japanese

Saten, Ruiko

Main

Itou, Kanae
Japanese

Shokuhou, Misaki

Main

Asakura, Azumi
Japanese

Uiharu, Kazari

Main

Toyosaki, Aki
Japanese

Accelerator

Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko
Japanese

Kamijou, Touma

Supporting

Abe, Atsushi
Japanese

Last Order

Supporting

Hidaka, Rina
Japanese

Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Supporting

MISAKA 10032

Supporting

Sasaki, Nozomi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue

Producer

Matsukura, Yuuji

Producer

Suzuki, Kaoru

Producer

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Opening Theme

	1: "final phase" by fripSide (eps 2-15)
	2: "dual existence" by fripSide (eps 16-25)

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Ending Theme

	1: "final phase" by fripSide (eps 1)
	2: "nameless story" by Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets (eps 2-15)
	3: "Seiran no Ato de (青嵐のあとで)" by sajou no hana (eps 25)

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Reviews

Sep 25, 2020

Stark700

Recommended

The idea of Railgun getting another anime adaptation is more than a blessing. Despite the 7 long years of waiting, we are once again greeted by another installation of the Raildex franchise. Being a spinoff of the original Index series, Railgun is no pushover when it comes to being a show of its own identity. Based on the manga, Railgun T is a breakout show of 2020.

Without further ado, we are reintroduced to Misaka Mikoto, the level 5 Esper, aka the Railgun of Academy City. She’s still the electrifying Misaka we all know from the previous seasons so don’t much expect change about her character ... this season. She’s already an established character and at this point really needs no more character development. However, Academy City itself is constantly changing every day and there are events that influences the city greatly. One such event is the Daihasaei Sports Festival, a chance for the city’s citizens to compete in friendly competition. The level 5 espers are appointed as representatives although the event itself gets chaotic. Misaka plays the role of not an enforcer but as a protector. It serves her right as someone who genuinely cares about the welfare of the city. Similarly, she is devoted to protect her friends from the darkness of Academy City. That’s the Railgun we all came to know from day one.

The darkness in Academy City never ceases to disappear and in this season, you’ll witness plenty the machinations from the science side. Misaka gets entangled once again into a deeper conspiracy that also involves Level 5 Esper, Shokuhou Misaki. These two never really see eye to eye but in this season, the two become unlikely allies to solve a bigger mystery. The season’s storytelling ties in together all the themes of the franchise and with Misaka and Misaki working together, they discover some unsettling revelations. One of the biggest projects of Academy City still revolves around the Misaka network and the concept of an esper to reach level 6. Misaka herself unknowingly becomes a catalyst after her emotions boiled up. It allowed the scientist Gensei to take advantage and trigger her powers even against her will. We also have to understand that level 6 itself is more than a power level but rather representing the divine state. What Gensei is trying to achieve goes beyond the realm of a human ability. But luckily, we have certain characters disrupting his dark dreams. If there’s anything viewers can learn from the Railgun franchise is that while there’s darkness, there’s also light. The light represents characters such as Touma, level 5 esper Gunha, and even Misaki.

The heavy drama aside, this season also has its ways to find fun and that includes pairing up certain characters together. Almost like fate, Touma encounters Saten for the first time and they bond over something simple as a good luck charm. Later on in the show, Saten also makes friends with Frenda, and despite their short time together, they form a formidable team. Misaka herself learns the importance of having friends and that the bonds they form is stronger than any esper power. Because let’s face it, one of Railgun’s prominent theme is friendship and ways for characters to connect with each other no matter how different they are. Whether it’s Misaka and her circle of friends or fellow espers, every episode shows that bonds are important. The more I watched this season, the more I see the direction of the story, one in which it always finds its ways to be truthful with its themes.

Consisting of two different arcs, the second half of Railgun introduces the Dream Ranker Arc with the concept of Indian Poker. It is a type of technology that can record dreams with individuals being able to experience them in the shape of cards. The creator, Kuriba Ryouko, is an intelligent girl who managed to create such technology. And as you can imagine, Indian Poker can be deadly when used in the wrong hands. In the right hands however, it can also be a helpful tool for characters such as Kuroko to protect Academy City’s citizens.

With a full 2-cour of 25 episodes, I’m very pleased to see how polished this season came to be. From the very first episodes, it knew what the audience wanted and wasted no time to get to the meat of the story. Focusing on the science side also gives an in-depth look at the lives of different espers, some who live like normal folks, while others engage in dangerous experiments. Ryoko is one such example where she even makes a clone of herself to achieve her goals. It goes on to say that some espers are willing to do anything regardless of the risk at hand. Misaka knows the dangers of experiments as she herself had been a subject to them. By fighting against the darkness of Academy City, she does her best to make their society a better place for everyone.

Watching Railgun T taught me that spinoffs can work wonders with the right set of characters, storytelling, themes, and overall selling itself as what it is. Since its previous seasons, we have an established cast with a poster girl who can be relatable in many ways. From the two main story arcs of this season, we learned even more about the science side of Academy City. It’s spinoffs like Railgun that serves as an example to be great on its own. It doesn’t need to be carried by its main show and in fact, I’d say with easy confidence that this season is a must watch for any fan of the Raildex universe.

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Sep 25, 2020

lt_wassile

Recommended

Have you ever seen yourself in a scenario where you take the likings of the sidekick instead of the main character? Where you’re more hooked into the story and whereabouts of a secondary figure in the show instead of whoever plays the lead?
Certainly, it has happened to all of us at least once in our lifetime and, if you are this deep into this series, it’s obvious that it’s not your first time experiencing this, as we all know what has to be known: Misaka Mikoto is the real deal.

After 7 years of drought, the third installment of the series premiered in January and neither ... the tremendous drop in production quality observed in JC Staff during the past few years (essentially taking Index III into consideration) nor an enormous hiatus due to a global pandemic could stop Railgun T to deliver.
The third season continues the story in a time where the Daihaisei Festival has begun, focusing as is customary by now, on the “Ace of Tokiwadai”: the one and only Misaka Mikoto, as Misaka and her friends dive deeper into the dark side of Academy City (A.C. for short), facing all kind of dangerous situations where, consequently, both the future of A.C. and their lives are at stake.

Railgun T continues with a storyline loaded with a repertoire of dark, powerful metaphysical and moral symbolism (as it was in the Sisters’ arc) but without backtracking in its goofiness and light-hearted characteristics which has made this show so enjoyable and “easy to watch” during the past years. In addition, when we add the action-packed philosophy that the Railgun franchise has had for the majority of its existence, as well as its quirky and free-spirited pace, we come up with the perfect formula that have given them great recognition over the past couple of years -taking out of the picture that Silent Party arc which was dreadful enough to leave us a sour taste for a bunch of years- and has helped the storyline of the series to get better and better with each season, making a clearer bigger picture of the Toaru universe, especially the scientific one, a.k.a, the one related to Misaka Mikoto and her endeavours.

Speaking about symbolism, Railgun never ceases to amaze me on how they’ve been able to both keep posing topics laden with meaning during the past few years and build on these topics to create an interesting and enlightening story; topics like the true meaning of humanism, the onto-epistemological dualism of body and soul or the paradigm of “the end justify the means”, all this while tempering the impact of their message, taking into consideration there position as a light-hearted show.

What I would like to point out is the subtle difference I’ve noticed in the development of the story, especially throughout the first course of the season. Up until now, I had not seen a particular interest in the writers on trying to make things a little bit more intriguing, nonetheless, this season had a more courageous approach, as they used plot devices such as foreshadowing, making a fool of the viewer (e.g: letting us think that <x> or <y> had good or bad intentions intentionally when it was the other way round) or plot twisting, making the viewer much more attached to the evolution of the story and the characters which participate in it, what, in my opinion, are enough facts to affirm that their storytelling has been taken to a whole nother level.

Another thing that this season has done great is in displaying contrasts properly. Let me explain. Do you realise how difficult is it to mesh two characters that are THAT different (Misaka and Shokuhou) and make them complement each other properly so that the series can go on? And I’m not speaking about power-related complementation, which is quite the easy task -I mean, they’re both Level 5 espers, it can’t be that difficult-, I’m talking about the fact that season T mainly revolves around their interaction, around their synergy -which, by the way, brings a little of life to the anime-, in spite of the circumstance that these two have wildly conflicting origins, personality and history. As a matter of fact, they create a proceeding where Shokuhou has no choice but to place enough trust on Mikoto in order to be able to tell her some of her secrets and indirectly ask Misaka for help.
As a result, we’ve all been witness to a much more organic show, something that was lacking on preceding jobs related to the Toaru universe, which felt much more systematic, somehow more worried on adapting correctly the source material instead of worrying on making a good, complete, entertaining show.

The main cast was as great as ever: Misaka being as badass as she has accustomed us, Kuroko not being as tiring as she is thanks to the notable decrease in “Onee-sama rants” and Saten being her usual self, giving a different point of view in a group so plunged into an atmosphere os esper powers that sometimes forget to live an “joyful, ordinary life”.
Additionally, let’s not forget about the coherent characterisation -at least for once- of side characters such as Kongo, Frenda, the Scavenger crew or even Shokuhou, giving them the proper screen-time and character development, leading to a much more complete series that uses its not-so-valuable characters for something more that comic relief gags (full-time job of Kongo-san until this season) or "damsel in distress" situations for the main cast to shine with their craftiness and might.

Backtracking a little bit, speaking about production and animation quality and knowing what studio was in charge of this season (as it was in s1 & s2), I am quite sure I wasn’t the only one who was in fear of yet again another disappointment after the embarrassing position in which the JC Staff crew have put themselves during the last few years (with magnificent works such as Index III, OPM s2 or the lately Accelerator powerpoint presentation which, as a matter of fact, was alright due to the fact that both Accel.’s character and voice actor are god-tier); however, it’s rather obvious that even JC Staff knows how important the Railgun franchise is for their survival. It's pretty clear that, due to its popularity in Japan and in the Occidental world, the studio has in mind that they are pretty much obliged to get it right, as Toaru Kagaku no Railgun is their spearhead in today’s highly competitive anime-production environment.
For that reason, JC Staff has made sure that the quality of the animation in Railgun T is off the charts, especially taking into account the expectations before the series began airing, knowing all the problems they faced with this anime due to production and pandemic reasons. Fluidity and choreography looked amazing -especially during fight scenes-, sakuga animation was carried out amazingly well (for instance, both openings and that episode 14 climax was just top-notch artwork), camera rotations and 3D movements were executed to perfection, backgrounds were depicted amazingly well, characters were drawn great...hell, even the use of CGI wasn’t creaky at all and led to one of the best animation scenes of the entire series!

By the same token, music has had a leading role in the success of this season. The sound director has done a marvelous job in both the composition -even though some tracks are not new- and the use of music throughout the season, enhancing the different emotions that were on display during different moments, whether it was hyping up the moment when a fight was taking place, magnifying the sense of urgency, intensifying the feeling of anguish...yet, one of the best part of this music section was in both the Openings and Endings (having the first OP in mind while writing this), as fripSide delivers yet again with that “final phase” banger.

Guys, spin-off’s work, and this is a good example of it; Railgun T comes up with a great mix of symbolism, light-hearted moments, great characterisation and action-packed eye-catching sequences that will not cease to amaze you during the whole course of the series; so if you’re not watching Railgun yet...WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

“Someone places a hurdle in front of me, and I can’t rest until I’ve jumped over it.” – Mikoto Misaka

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Sep 25, 2020

ACasualViewer

Recommended

Spoiler

Preface: A Certain Scientific Railgun has always been JC Staff’s favorite and most profitable series to adapt, the bias is quite real and very noticeable when any season of Railgun is compared to a season of Index or the new Accelerator anime. As expected, despite all the failures JC Staff recently had and even with the global pandemic that occurred while this was airing, Railgun T is still by far the single best thing made by JC Staff in years, not counting movies. This review will expand on why the anime adapt for Railgun T blows the other Toaru adapts out of the water and ...

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Poll: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T Episode 24 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 18, 2020	67 replies	by Autan »» May 18, 10:12 AM
Do you want more Railguns in anime? Catalano - Apr 19	25 replies	by AurasNep »» May 8, 9:38 PM
Poll: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T Episode 25 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Sep 25, 2020	122 replies	by Emoters »» Feb 6, 12:13 AM
Poll: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T Episode 23 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 11, 2020	45 replies	by Emoters »» Feb 6, 12:08 AM
Poll: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun T Episode 22 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Sep 4, 2020	54 replies	by Emoters »» Feb 6, 12:06 AM

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